| Trump ‘Couldn’t Give a Shit’ About China Rounding Up Millions of Muslims Posted: 18 Jun 2020 05:13 PM PDT  The ugliest claim made by John Bolton in the former national security adviser's new "tell-all" book is that President Donald Trump encouraged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to continue rounding up Uighur Muslims into the concentration camps where they are tortured, separated from their families, and "reeducated."Bolton's forthcoming memoir presents Trump's dismissiveness to the crisis as part of the president's broader efforts to secure foreign assistance for his reelection. But several officials told The Daily Beast it's also just a part of who Trump is. Throughout his presidency, nine current and former senior administration officials say, Trump has exhibited a callous indifference to what has been described as crimes against humanity and cultural genocide taking place in China's western Xinjiang province."He couldn't give a shit," said a former senior Trump administration official, who's been in the room when Trump has discussed the Uighur crisis. This official added that in their experience, "there has never been any indication when the issue comes up that the president cares or is even making any effort to fake it." John Bolton Shows That All the President's Men Are CowardsIn an interview with The Wall Street Journal, published shortly after excerpts from Bolton's book were reported, Trump said it was "not true" that he had encouraged Xi to keep building the concentration camps. But according to others who've worked with the president on the issue, he has been—at the very least—consistently indifferent to the crisis.Three other former or current senior officials say that at various points during his first term in office, when the human-rights issue is broached or when Trump has been briefed on it, the president has often quickly changed the subject. Sometimes, he will add an "Oh, wow" or an "Oh, really?" in response to a horrific data point or piece of related information, before moving on. None of these sources were confident that Trump was even paying full attention during these discussions, given his appearance of boredom. Usually, the president is content to deputize other top officials, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, to deal with it and handle much of the public relations on the matter, including by way of delivering speeches and meeting with religious freedom activists.One current administration official said that Trump will, at times, show signs of fleeting concern or a peep of outrage in private meetings. But the source added that this is typically undercut by his limited attention span. This official recounted that during one policy discussion early last year, when the Uighur Muslims came up, President Trump interjected: "How is that our problem?""It was clear to most based off my conversations with the national security team that the president couldn't care less about this," one former Republican national security official said, referring to the Uighur camps.A senior administration official pushed back on the notion that Trump had not shown interest, saying the president "has a strong, action-oriented record of holding the Chinese government accountable for its atrocities in Xinjiang, including with regard to the largest incarceration of ethnic minorities since World War II." Many of the actions that the official listed were sanctions put into place against Chinese companies for human rights violations and moves, such as visa restrictions, that had been announced by the State Department."President Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he protects those who cannot protect themselves – both here and abroad," said NSC spokesman John Ullyot. "President Trump has led strongly from day one challenging wrongdoing by countries or institutions, and any suggestion that he's doing otherwise when it comes to the Uyghurs is preposterous."China's Uighur Terror AttackTrump's indifference to a crisis that has, according to United Nations estimates, kept over one million people in detention, is not for lack of knowledge. Even in an authoritarian country like China, where information is often tightly controlled, the outlines of the Uighur cultural genocide have been clear for much of his presidency. Two individuals familiar with the matter said that Trump was repeatedly briefed on the Uighur situation by the intelligence community and others, including particulars about the camps and the number of individuals rounded up by the Chinese government."I know the breadth and depth of what's been happening in Xinjiang has been made available" to Trump, said Paul Heer, who was the national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. Heer, now a distinguished fellow at the Center for the National Interest, said that while he had no specific knowledge of what was briefed to Trump, "as a matter of course, the topic is important enough to be incorporated routinely [in briefings] to the White House. He had every opportunity to know of this."Multiple former and current national security officials, some of whom worked under Bolton, said the National Security Council has for years tried to persuade Trump to take a greater interest in the Uighurs. And State Department cables obtained by The Daily Beast show the department actively working to confront the issue in public settings. For example, in April, U.S. Ambassador Peter Hoekstra met with Uighur activists and community members in the Netherlands."During the April 9 lunch with Ambassador Hoekstra, the Platform chairman and government liaison described the conditions of the Chinese government-run camps in Xinjiang and estimated that between 2.5 and five million Uighurs have been interned there," one cable said. "He explained that torture occurs in these camps, which are divided into "A/B/C regimes," with those in the harshest regime unable to even see the sunlight."The cable went on to note that Hoekstra's subsequent tweet about their lunch had "gained significant attention with 148 retweets and 264 likes as of April 16. The tweet also attracted the attention of the Minister Counselor of the local Chinese embassy, Ribiao Chen, who criticized via tweet Post's outreach as a distraction from the spread of COVID-19 in the United States."China's Xi Jinping Sees Trump as a Walking Power VacuumOutside of State, officials say, it's been mostly the National Security Council, by way of Matt Pottinger, the deputy National Security Advisor, who has tried to press the president and other senior administration officials to use the Uighur camps as a way to hold Xi's government accountable. The NSC last year brought on a Uighur American, Elnigar Iltebir, as the director of the China desk."It's something the China folks in the administration have cared a lot about. It's the one issue that they felt like they had shifted the debate in a useful way," said the former Republican national security official. "They think they've shifted the conversation. There's been a lot of international attention on this. And it's all been on the part of the national security team. Can they claim they have changed things on the ground? That's harder to say."On Capitol Hill, the discussion has been far different. The plight of the Uighurs has attracted outrage among lawmakers and spurred bipartisan action. A bill to sanction the Chinese government over its conduct passed Congress on May 27 with near-unanimous support. It was signed into law by Trump the day that Bolton's allegations broke. And on Thursday, very few of the Senate GOP's China hawks seemed eager to make an issue of the book's shocking account or to even call on Trump to address it. "I can't imagine the president saying, yeah, concentration camps are fine," Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a frequent critic of the Chinese government's treatment of religious minorities, told The Daily Beast. Asked about Trump's appetite to take up the Uighurs' cause versus Congress, Lankford replied, "it's not that he's done nothing on it... The challenge is, where do you find the leverage to be able to change that behavior?"In 2014, Beijing launched what it called its "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism." It was an intensification of already-repressive measures in Xinjiang. Political reeducation, conducted violently, has been its primary characteristic, with a goal of erasing Uighur culture and faith. A "Regulation on De-extremification" pushed by Beijing in March 2017 accelerated internment of the Muslim minority. It prevented outward displays of Muslim faith in the western Xinjiang province, including the wearing of religious hair-coverings, the growth of what it called "abnormal" beards and even private displays of faith. A Uighur man, Kairat Samarkan, described to Amnesty International researchers his experiences in a re-education camp with 6,000 others from October 2017 to February 2018. Torture was rife, featuring techniques that the CIA notoriously used in its unacknowledged black-site prisons against terrorism suspects. Leaked Chinese documents published by the New York Times contained references to Xi urging the Chinese Communist Party to "emulate aspects of America's 'war on terror' after the Sept. 11 attacks." Samarkan was hooded, "made to wear shackles on his arms and legs and was forced to stand in a fixed position for 12 hours when first detained," according to a September 2018 Amnesty report. Internees at the camp were coerced into chanting "Long live Xi Jinping" before meals and study speeches of the CCP. The same Amnesty report found, by September 2018, an estimated one million people interned in the camps. State surveillance, rife through the widespread unencrypted WeChat platform, enables the internment of Muslims. So does China's advanced use of facial-recognition software, biometric data collection and even DNA. A contemporaneous Human Rights Watch report found that it is common for Xinjiang residents to have numerous relatives "in a mix of political education camps, pre-trial detention, and prison."But during the first two years of the Trump presidency, the White House never asked the Pentagon "to consider the Uighur Muslim situation," recalled a former senior Defense Department official."The president's signing [this week] of an 11th-hour bill to sanction China for human-rights abyss seems more like a reaction to Amb. Bolton's book revelations, rather than a reflection of Trump's concerns about human rights," said the ex-senior Pentagon official.Congress began receiving briefings on the dire situation in Xinjiang as early as 2013, and would ask for increased detail from 2014 to 2018 "as things were ramping up with the concentration camps and the system of mass surveillance techniques the Chinese put into play," according to a Senate Democratic aide who requested anonymity. While that aide had no knowledge of what information was made available to Trump, the aide said it would be "incomprehensible" for the president not to have been briefed about the plight of the Uighurs ahead of Xi's April 2017 visit to Mar-a-Lago, the first time the two leaders met face to face.For a variety of reasons—including his prioritizing of a trade deal and his strong personal affection for Xi—the president rarely weighs in on the repression of Uighurs while in public. And when he does, it can lead to jarring moments on live TV.In July 2019, Trump met at the White House with several envoys of persecuted religious minorities; part of the meeting was televised or streamed online live. One of the attendees was a Uighur rights advocate.When the activist began telling Trump about "concentration camps," mentioning that she hadn't been able to see her detained dad since 2013, the president responded: "Where is that? Where is that in China?"Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Australian leader says unnamed state increasing cyberattacks Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:53 PM PDT |
| UN accuses multiple countries of quietly sending arms to DR Congo Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:53 PM PDT  DR Congo's military is receiving weapons and training from multiple countries without notifying the United Nations as required by a 2004 resolution, according to a recent report to the Security Council. The Democratic Republic of Congo's east is one of Africa's flashpoints, gripped by militia violence that has claimed more than 1,000 lives in a matter of months and caused more than half a million people to flee their homes. DR Congo and its military have not been subject to an arms embargo since 2008, though one still applies to armed groups.
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| Beyond the bombshells, 5 other memorable takeaways from Bolton's book Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:47 PM PDT  Writing about his 17 months at the White House, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton characterizes him as "stunningly uninformed," ignorant of basic facts from geography to history, and easily manipulated by foreign adversaries. Bolton was with President Trump at major foreign policy moments, including two summits between Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un in June 2018 in Singapore and February 2019 in Vietnam.
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| UN seeks urgent funding for pandemic aid transport Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:16 PM PDT |
| Africa's week in pictures: 12-18 June 2020 Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:09 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
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| Girl Up To Expand Its Leadership Summit for Young Activists Posted: 18 Jun 2020 04:00 PM PDT |
| Mozambique police jailed for killing election observer Posted: 18 Jun 2020 02:34 PM PDT  Anastacio Matavel was shot as he was driving in the southern city of Xai-Xai last year.
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| Trump news - live: Top state department official resigns over president's 'actions surrounding racial injustice' as Facebook takes down his ads Posted: 18 Jun 2020 02:00 PM PDT  Facebook has removed dozens of ads from Donald Trump's re-election campaign invoking Nazi imagery against political opponents while he has publicly sparred with the US Supreme Couty and his ex-national security adviser John Bolton over allegations in a new book.Bolton say the "stunningly uninformed" president begged Chinese premier Xi Jinping for help with his re-election, said invading Venezuela would be "cool", believed Finland was in Russia and did not realise the UK was a nuclear power. Several newspapers today carry extracts from The Room Where it Happened, which hits shelves next week and paints a damning portrait of the Trump White House and a blustering president willing to do "personal favours for dictators he likes", ignorant of foreign policy and motivated predominantly by "re-election calculations".
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| Curtains for Camelot: Last Kennedy sibling's death ends era Posted: 18 Jun 2020 01:33 PM PDT  Camelot's inner circle is just about gone — though its spirit, some say, is very much alive. Wednesday's death of Jean Kennedy Smith, an acclaimed former U.S. ambassador to Ireland and the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy, virtually erases those who were closest to the assassinated 35th U.S. president. "This is sort of bringing down the curtain on one of America's three political dynasties — the Adamses, the Roosevelts and now the Kennedys," said Patrick Maney, a Kennedy scholar and retired professor of history at Boston College.
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| Who they are: Six DACA recipients rejoice over court ruling Posted: 18 Jun 2020 12:39 PM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court has kept alive, for now, the Obama-era program that allows immigrants brought here as children to work and protects them from deportation. About 650,000 people have DACA protections. Joella Roberts was 4 when she came to the U.S. with her mom and brother in 2001.
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| AP Explains: Juneteenth marks day last enslaved people freed Posted: 18 Jun 2020 12:19 PM PDT  Juneteenth commemorates when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free 155 years ago. While the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the South in 1863, it wasn't enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War two years later. Confederate soldiers surrendered in April 1865, but word didn't reach the last enslaved black people until June 19, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas.
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| Number of EU citizens refused settlement rights trebles after last ditch offers to prove eligibility Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:45 AM PDT  The number of immigrants refused the right to live in the UK by the Home Office after Brexit has trebled in just three months after hundreds were given a last chance to prove their eligibility. Home Office figures show that the number rejected increased from 300 in February to 900 last month either because of their criminality or their ineligibility due to their lack of proof of residence or a job in the UK or any family connection to a EU citizen. The 900 - of which the vast majority are ineligible rather than criminal - is more than a 100 times the seven rejected during the entire previous ten months since the EU settlement scheme was launched in March last year. The Home Office indicated the surge stemmed from its decision to start refusing "ineligible" applications in February, many of which had been in the system for months and subject to "repeated unsuccessful attempts" to obtain missing evidence or information from the applicant. It comes on top of a doubling in "invalid" applications where people failed to provide the necessary initial information such as passport details or an address. This rose from 6,700 in February to 14,100 in May. There are no figures on invalid applications before then because the Home Office only started providing such a breakdown in February. A further 28,900 applications have been declared void or withdrawn, up nearly 50 per cent from 19,100 in February. They include British citizens or diplomats who wrongly believe they need to apply. A total of 3.32 million applications by EU citizens for UK settlement rights have been granted, of which 57 per cent have been granted settled status and 41 per cent granted pre-settled status. This is up nearly 99,000 in May. Of these, more than a third are Polish (697,000) or Romanian (590,000), followed by Italians at 363,000, Portugese at 281,000 and Spanish 219,000.
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| Mexico to push for development from UN Security Council Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:38 AM PDT |
| Kenya defeats Djibouti for a seat on UN Security Council Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:21 AM PDT |
| Juneteenth: A day of joy and pain - and now national action Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:14 AM PDT  In just about any other year, Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the day in 1865 that all enslaved black people learned they had been freed from bondage, would be marked by African American families across the nation with a cookout, a parade, a community festival, a soulful rendition of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing." For many white Americans, recent protests over police brutality have driven their awareness of Juneteenth's significance. "This is one of the first times since the '60s, where the global demand, the intergenerational demand, the multiracial demand is for systemic change," said Cornell University professor Noliwe Rooks, a segregation expert.
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| AP Explains: US Supreme Court ruling on DACA program Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:14 AM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the program that protects immigrants who were brought to the country as children and allows them to work. The court on Thursday ruled President Donald Trump didn't properly end the program, which then-President Barack Obama created in 2012. Trump attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017 shortly after being elected on a largely anti-immigrant platform.
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| Decline in new US virus deaths may be temporary reprieve Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:08 AM PDT  The number of deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. has fallen in recent weeks to the lowest level since late March, even as states increasingly reopen for business. "For now, it's too soon to be reassured that deaths are going down and everything's OK," said Dr. Cyrus Shahpar of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent epidemics. Deaths from COVID-19 across the country are down to about 680 a day, compared with around 960 two weeks ago, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
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| AP-NORC poll: Trump adds to divisions in an unhappy country Posted: 18 Jun 2020 11:00 AM PDT  Americans are deeply unhappy about the state of their country — and a majority think President Donald Trump is exacerbating tensions in a moment of national crisis, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. With less than five months until Election Day, the survey offers few bright spots for a president confronting a historic pandemic, a sharp economic decline and national outrage over police brutality against black people. "Instead of bringing us all together, he's pulling us all apart," said Donna Oates, a 63-year-old retiree from Chino, California.
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| PM Johnson tells Macron: Brexit talks cannot stretch into autumn Posted: 18 Jun 2020 10:01 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus in South Africa: Restrictions ease as Covid-19 cases rise rapidly Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:57 AM PDT  South Africa is trying to balance dealing with the virus and supporting a damaged economy.
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| Trump Aide to Fox News: Bolton’s Book Is ‘Deep Swamp Revenge Porn’ Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Thursday went after former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, telling Fox News that Bolton's upcoming bombshell memoir on his time in Trumpworld is nothing more than "deep swamp revenge porn."Multiple media outlets received advanced copies of Bolton's book this week and reported that the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations claims, among other things, that the president sought reelection help from China and expressed support for the Chinese government's use of internment camps. With President Donald Trump railing against Bolton and the administration attempting to prevent the book's release, Navarro was asked by America's Newsroom co-anchor Sandra Smith to respond to the Justice Department's complaint that the book contains classified information.Calling the ex-Trump official "Big Lie Bolton"—an obvious reference to Trump's claims that Bolton's book is "full of lies"—Navarro insisted that the one-time Fox News pundit "literally begged" to be national security adviser."But the minute he got in here, what he did in that building right over there was set up the national security office as an autonomous zone with him literally as the warlord," Navarro declared, adding that Bolton was "good at acquiring turf but he had no clue what to actually do with it."Navarro went on to say there was a "repeatable pattern" in Bolton's behavior, noting that the "big lie" that Bolton told during his Bush administration tenure was that there were weapons of destruction in Iraq, likening that claim to what Bolton was doing to the Trump administration."And then when he left the Bush administration, what did he do? He did the same kind of revenge porn," Navarro continued. "This is deep swamp revenge porn on the part of John Bolton."Co-anchor Ed Henry, somewhat taken aback, asked: "You're calling it revenge porn?""It's the deep swamp political equivalent of revenge porn," Navarro confirmed. "The guy got fired because he didn't obey the chain of command because he was out of touch with what President Donald J. Trump stands for in terms of foreign policy."As Navarro continued to fire away at Bolton, Henry interjected and pointed out that Bolton's central charge is that Trump is unfit for office, prompting Navarro to exclaim that Trump "is the greatest president we've ever had in modern history on the economy" before lambasting Bolton some more.Smith, meanwhile, noted that critics would rightly ask why Trump hired in Bolton in the first place if he were so incompetent, causing Navarro to once again say Bolton "begged" for the job and Trump was willing to give him a second chance."He comes in here in his seersucker summer suits and with his big mustache," Navarro seethed. "And I was in a staff meeting one time and he walked in and he was absolutely giddy at the prospect of a coup in Venezuela. I think to myself, wait a minute. This is a serious, serious matter and he is giddy. There's something wrong with that dude!""A lot to unpack there," Henry reacted while concluding the interview.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Canada’s failed UN security council bid exposes Trudeau’s 'dilettante' foreign policy Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:45 AM PDT  Second failed attempt to win seat raises questions about messaging and clarity in Canada's foreign policy, experts sayWhen Justin Trudeau was first elected in 2015, he promised that his victory would help Canada vault back on to the world stage, and reclaim a global influence that had eroded in previous years."To this country's friends all around the world, many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world," Trudeau told a raucous crowd on election night. "Well, I have a simple message for you. On behalf of 35 million Canadians: we're back."But Trudeau's marquee foreign policy gambit has ended in disappointment, after Canada lost its bid for a temporary United Nations security council seat. In a single round of voting on Wednesday afternoon, Ireland and Norway secured the required two-third of votes, edging Canada into third place.It was Canada's second failed attempt to win the seat, and experts believe it raised serious questions about the messaging and clarity of the country's foreign policy.Ahead of the vote, Trudeau tempered expectations, telling reporters that regardless of the outcome, Canada was "moving forward and leading the way" on issues such as climate change and a feminist foreign policy. But in the final days, the PM and his team mounted a frantic effort, phoning leaders in India, Pakistan, Mexico, North Macedonia and Fiji, to secure votes.For those closely watching the campaign, the last-minute push was likely too late – and the messaging from Ottawa too confused.It was only in February, months before the vote, that Trudeau and a small delegation visited Senegal, Ethiopia and Germany to pitch Canada's candidacy. The prime minister had a planned trip to the Caribbean to court regional leaders, but scrapped the visit amid a wave of protests at home."If you had five years, why would you wait so long for these trips and meetings? You need a really long runway to build goodwill and relations with other states that would get to the kind of guaranteed outcome of a security council seat. It's not an easy thing to do," said Mark Kersten, deputy director of the Wayamo Foundation.Norway and Ireland, meanwhile, had been laying the groundwork for their campaigns for years, and on Wednesday secured 130 and 128 votes respectively. Canada took 108.Canada had spent more than C$2mn on the effort, far more than Ireland. But the money was hampered by an unclear message."We're supposed to have a feminist foreign policy. To me, that means that every single decision that's relevant to Canadian international relations should be examined through its gender dimensions," said Kersten."Are we doing that? I don't necessarily see that with Saudi Arabia or our relations towards China."Meanwhile, Canada's public commitments to human rights and economic equality, were severely compromised by its defence of the engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which has admitted fraud and bribery in Libya.For decades, Canada branded itself as a peacekeeping nation, drawing on a long history of intervening in conflicts around the world. But those efforts have eroded significantly in recent years, and current commitments are at a 60-year low."There definitely is a big gap between rhetoric and reality," said Thomas Juneau, a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa.Canada's mission in Mali, its largest in nearly a generation, lasted one year."The mission really reinforced the perception that we wanted to 'tick a box' – as opposed to really doing the heavy lifting," said Juneau.Trudeau's interest in the security council was seen as a way to draw a contrast with former PM Stephen Harper, whose lack of interest in courting the UN culminated in Canada's first ever defeat for a seat on the security council in 2010. The rare loss – to Portugal – was met with shock and dismay in Canada.Wednesday's surprise defeat, is likely to raise questions about the government's effectiveness in managing its messaging abroad."Another foreign affairs failure for Justin Trudeau. Keeps the streak alive! He sold out Canada's principles for a personal vanity project and still lost. What a waste," tweeted outgoing Conservative leader Andrew Scheer.Juneau held out hope that the loss would prompt a re-examination of Canada's "dilettante" foreign policy."Canada has long found a way to avoid taking clear positions on many issues. That [would] have been more difficult with a security council seat, because of the higher expectations," he said."There's more scrutiny. And that's important – because in this country, there's a limited scrutiny of foreign policy."
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| Cyprus says common EU migration deal 'imperative' Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:37 AM PDT |
| Why North Korea Took a Stick of Dynamite to Inter-Korean Detente Posted: 18 Jun 2020 09:18 AM PDT  On Tuesday, North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office based in Kaesong that once facilitated communication and cooperation between the two Koreas. Here's the reasons why, and what may come next.
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| Gen Z’s Queer Icons Talk About Pride Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:58 AM PDT  This Pride month, which marks the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots — when transgender people, gay people, and drag queens protested police brutality for six days after a violent raid at NYC's Stonewall Inn — the queer community has once again found themselves on the frontlines, this time to protest for Black people and, more specifically, Black trans people who are still being targeted and killed at alarming rates. In celebration of Pride, Calvin Klein launched a nine-part video series, directed and shot by American photographer Ryan McGinley, featuring rising stars in the community, each with a unique story to tell. The lineup includes Fenty model Ama Elsesser, Black transqueer model and actress Jari Jones, 13 Reasons Why star Tommy Dorfman, and "Only A Girl" singer Gia Woods, among others. "I called my mom and dad one day and told them I am queer," MaryV Benoit, a Brooklyn-based photographer known for exploring the queer existence in her work, told Refinery29. "They were both supportive and said whoever I am with just has to treat me with respect. I hope for a world in which my personal experience is no longer rare. If you are a parent, please, try to be as respectful and patient as you can be with your child."Non-binary model Ama Elsesser had a similar coming out experience at 13. "I was having an anxiety attack one day and just yelled, 'Mom I'm gay, I'm gay, okay?' and she responded, 'That's why you're freaking out? It's not a big deal, and I always knew that cause you're so curious,'" they said in an interview. But not all have such positive experiences. "Coming from a strict Persian background, you can imagine that it wasn't easy," singer-songwriter Gia Woods told R29. "Both of my parents are from Iran, where you can still be beheaded for being gay. So growing up, I was very closeted and felt estranged from my own family a lot of my childhood. I thought that there was something wrong with me, so I just kept to myself a lot of the time." According to her, music became her way out, a method of expression that eventually led her to embrace who she was. "I dropped my first ever single called 'Only a Girl,' which was how I came out to the whole world. It was terrifying, but I finally felt like I could breathe," Woods said. > "Know that heterosexuality isn't the hierarchy and that being something other than what society deems as 'regular' is just as good, maybe even better."> > Jari JonesFor Jari Jones, the most important piece of advice she has to give to the younger generation is to "enjoy the exploration." "Know that heterosexuality isn't the hierarchy," she added via email, and "that being something other than what society deems as 'regular' is just as good, maybe even better." Tommy Dorfman, the 13 Reasons Why star who came out as non-binary last year after struggling with their own gender identity for most of their life, agrees. "There's no rush. You can move as quickly or as slowly as you want," they said in the campaign video."Don't try to take yourself out of your feelings," Elsesser added. "They are all valid and real." The campaign also features Chella Man, a gender-queer artist and Benoit's partner who is deaf and trans; Mina Gerges, a gay Egyptian model who was recently featured in a Sephora campaign; Pabllo Vittar, a popular drag queen; and bisexual model Reece King. In addition to the campaign, Calvin Klein is offering donations to LGBTQ+ organizations throughout the year, rather than just during Pride month. Earlier in 2020, the company partnered with OutRight Action International to provide emergency financial relief to LGBTQ+ nonprofits during the pandemic. This month, the brand is partnering with onePULSE Foundation, the organization established by the owner of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where the 2016 shooting took place. The donation will go toward building the National Pulse Memorial and Museum, as well as creating an endowment in the name of Frank Hernandez, the Calvin Klein store manager who died in the shooting. Throughout the year, the brand will also be working with Australian charity The Equality Project to aid in its goal of creating a world where diversity is celebrated, and all people are respected.The Pride collection — which includes the brand's iconic sports bra and brief sets with a rainbow twist, multicolored boxer briefs, denim, sweatshirts, and more — is available now.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Pride, InsidePride Fashion With A Capital PBlack Queer People In Fashion To Support Now
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| Israeli soldier gets community service after killing Gazan Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:52 AM PDT  An Israeli soldier who shot and killed a Palestinian fisherman near the Gaza frontier in 2018 has been given 45 days of community service after an army investigation concluded he fired without authorization, the military said Thursday. The military said a group of Palestinians had approached the fence but were far away when the paratrooper opened fire, striking one of them. Nawaf al-Attar, a 23-year-old fisherman was shot and killed by Israeli troops near the northern beach frontier on Nov. 14, 2018, when the military said the shooting occurred.
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| Iran test fires cruise missiles resistant to ‘electronic war,’ says naval chief Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:52 AM PDT  Iran test fired cruise missiles in a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman and northern Indian Ocean, state media reported Thursday.
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| China hits Trump over Uighur sanctions amid Bolton claims he supported camps Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:47 AM PDT  Beijing on Thursday lashed out after President Donald Trump signed a law Wednesday calling for sanctions to punish Chinese officials for human rights abuses against that country's Uighur Muslim minority. The latest bout in the ongoing war of words between the world's two largest economies comes after allegations in excerpts of a book by former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump told China's leader, Xi Jinping, that he supported Beijing's construction of camps to detain Uighurs. "We again urge the U.S. side to immediately correct its mistakes and stop using this Xinjiang-related law to harm China's interests and interfere in China's internal affairs," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday, referring to the region in the northwest of the country where many Uighurs live.
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| China’s Xi Jinping Sees Trump as a Walking Power Vacuum Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:47 AM PDT  HONG KONG—Reaction to that part of John Bolton's upcoming memoir where he says Donald Trump asked Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping for help in the next presidential election has been muted in China itself. The underlying sentiment is that nothing was done, and nothing needed to be done, in answer to Trump's rather pitiful plea, and little or no comment is necessary now. Bolton's Bombshell Memoir: Trump Asked China's President to Help Him Win the ElectionAuthorities in Beijing have for years thought it likely that with or without their help American voters would cast enough ballots for the tweeter-in-chief to remain in the Oval Office, and they're perfectly happy with that.Chinese news reports about Bolton's book, The Room Where It Happened, mostly mention undefined "explosive details" that embarrass Trump, hinting that he may have compromised American national security repeatedly, but they do not specify what those details are or why they're important. Conspicuously absent from virtually all reports is Trump's conversation with Xi at the G20 Summit last year, where Bolton says the U.S. president suggested Xi's control over China's economic power could help sway the 2020 election in Trump's favor. Instead, the focus is on the Trump administration's flailing attempts to halt the book's sale and circulation.News coverage in China bundles this personal account by a former high-level White House official with plans for a tell-all by the president's estranged niece Mary Trump to hit bookshelves this summer. The stories shape the narrative that people close to Donald Trump are turning on him, that the American system has failed—but that is because he was chosen by the people, and now people in the U.S. and everywhere else have to live with that choice.Another very important subtext is that China under the presidency of Xi Jinping will emerge from the contretemps with Trump, however long it lasts, looking more than ever like the great world leader of the 21st century.Trump first showed Beijing how he would buckle under pressure after he started the trade war nearly two years ago. Despite Trump's series of tariffs on Chinese imports, China's 2018 trade surplus with the U.S. ran at a record $323.3 billion, cratering domestic manufacturing output in the U.S. to levels that were the lowest in a decade. Beijing also sees that America's major European allies—the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—now have strained relations with Washington under Trump. If China's goal is to upend the global order, not merely in economic terms but also on political grounds, then four more years of Trump can only benefit its trajectory.Xi Jinping is hunting for a legacy that will keep his name in his party's history books for generations. With Trump on the other side of the Pacific, seated in the highest office in Washington but functioning as a walking power vacuum, the CCP leader has plenty of space to make bold moves.On Tuesday, Chinese jets flew into Taiwan's air defense identification zone for the third time in a week. In the South China Sea, American and Chinese warships routinely come close to colliding, at times cruising by each other with just 100 meters between them. A national security law designed by Beijing to tighten its grip on Hong Kong was put before China's legislative organ Thursday. Even though its details still have not been shared with the public or the city's top officials, the law's implementation will be fast-tracked soon.In the Korean Peninsula, after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office that is the site for talks with the south, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister, is cranking up the DPRK for military action. But as Bolton revealed, Trump's idea of engagement with North Korea is to gift its dictator with an Elton John "Rocket Man" CD bearing his own autograph. The Kim dynasty looks to China as its greatest benefactor and their only globally influential ally.On the other side of the country, a brawl between soldiers along the border involving rocks and barbed wire wrapped around clubs left 20 Indians dead and an unknown number of casualties on the Chinese side, 14,000 feet above sea level, just a day after Chinese media said border tensions had deescalated.And when Trump said in May that the U.S. will end its relationship with the World Health Organization—while enacting policies that have made a deadly pandemic even deadlier—be sure that China, the second largest economy in the world, will fill the void that is in the shape of Trump's silhouette.If there is any doubt that Beijing and China's nationalistic supporters believe that four more years of Donald "MAGA" Trump will benefit the CCP's rise, consider this: Trump's transliterated Chinese name, Chuanpu, has been adapted to Chuan Jianguo—a patriotic name that literally means "to build a nation." The joke, even though no one's laughing, is that Trump, as president of the United States of America, is doing more than anyone else on the planet to make China great again—just by staying in "the room where it happens."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Turkey, Iran summoned over bombing of Kurdish rebels in Iraq Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:42 AM PDT  Baghdad on Thursday summoned ambassadors from Turkey and Iran over their countries' separate military operations this week targeting Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, calling the attacks an affront to Iraq's sovereignty. In an airborne-and-land operation dubbed "Operation Claw-Tiger," Turkey airlifted troops into northern Iraq on Wednesday to root out the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which it says maintains bases across the border in Iraq.
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| There are no heroes in the John Bolton v Donald Trump story Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:39 AM PDT  Neither Bolton nor Trump provided a blueprint for US foreign policy – and now the Republican party is out of ideasJohn Bolton's memoir of his time in the Trump administration tells us many things that we already know. The president understands very little about how the world works, treats his office as an extension of his personal and family interests, and is obsequious to foreign dictators.According to Bolton's new book, Donald Trump asked China to increase purchases of American farm products not to help US voters, but to bolster his own re-election chances. He is so enamored of foreign dictators that he praised Xi Jinping for China's mass imprisonment of Muslim Uighurs. Bolton also claims he publicly defended Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Jamal Khashoggi's killing, because he wanted to create a distraction from unfavorable news coverage of his daughter Ivanka.To any objective observer, this subordination of American foreign policy to the immediate political needs of one man has been a disaster, shredding Washington's credibility and goodwill around the world. Bolton, likewise, seems to have found it intolerable. But this is a disaster in which his own vision is implicated, and from which it is unlikely to recover. Only the sheer vacuity of Republican foreign policy enabled Trump to persuade so much of the party's base to embrace his own selfish, incoherent leadership.> Republicans are keen to rip up the solutions to hard problems offered by others, without offering any of their ownThere are no heroes in this story. Bolton is a figure with dangerous views who failed to reveal what he knew about Trump during the impeachment trial earlier this year, when it might have mattered. But the split between Trump and Bolton – and the two brands of nationalism they represent – also tells us something about the hollowness of today's Republican party as a governing force. Neither the unreconstructed hawkishness of Bolton nor the intellectual vacuum of Trumpism provide a blueprint for American foreign policy, and the party has run out of other ideas.Bolton's nationalism consists of a fierce skepticism of diplomacy, at least when not combined with threats of force, and a willingness for America to act unilaterally to get its way. Although he has always been more in favor of what is euphemistically called "regime change" than most elected Republicans, his aggressive rhetoric, scapegoating of foreigners, and dismissal of constraints on American action overseas is embraced by his party's mainstream – including rising figures such as Senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton.During his capture of the Republican party, Trump synthesized his own version of nationalism. He combined Bolton's aggressive flag-waving with a conviction that foreign wars were an elite indulgence which harmed lower-income and lesser-educated white voters, the chief audience for Trump's nationalist vision.But an even stronger component of Trumpian nationalism is the president's belief that his own interests are identical to those of the US. To his supporters, he personally embodies American interests, allowing him to perform dizzying policy U-turns according to the needs of the moment. Trump ultimately has no use for ideologues, whose firm beliefs get in the way of his desire to bend every institution and relationship to his own personal ends.For a long time, conservative foreign policy has been based not on ideas but on what Lionel Trilling famously called "irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas". Foremost among these gestures has been a knee-jerk opposition to multilateral cooperation and constructive diplomacy, even as the world has become more globalized and power has diffused away from the United States. Republicans are keen to rip up the solutions to hard problems offered by others without being able to offer any of their own – just as they did by destroying the Iran nuclear deal without offering any alternative way of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.As a result, the party has been left without any credible vision of America's place in the world. Such a hollow shell was easy prey for a corrupt, immoral demagogue. The party and the country have been left in the hands of a president who does not try to advance the country's interests, or even to seriously understand what those interests are separate from his own re-election campaign.But simply getting rid of Trump won't solve the problem, which is rooted in the Republican party's dismissal of both the facts of the modern, globalized world and the responsibilities of governance. Bolton might know where Finland is, but in his own way he is just as detached from reality as the president. And in the silence he shared with so many Republican colleagues during the impeachment trial, he has also shown how little he regards the safety, institutions and values of the nation.Whatever their differences, Bolton and Trump ultimately have a lot more in common than they seem to think. They represent two faces of a Republican party which has completely lost any right to the public's trust in its handling of American government, at home or abroad. It is hard to see at this point how it could ever win it back. * Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University
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| Michael Gove warns Northern Irish voters will reject EU over bureaucratic customs rules Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:33 AM PDT  Michael Gove has warned Northern Ireland will vote to break away from EU customs rules if Brussels is too "bureaucratic" about enforcing the new border in the Irish Sea. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told MPs on a scrutiny committee that there would be "unfettered access" of Northern Irish products to mainland Britain. Pressed on whether that meant no exit declarations on goods travelling to the mainland, he said, "absolutely". Michel Barnier said at the end of the fourth round of Brexit negotiations that avoiding exit declarations on goods moving from Northern Ireland was "incompatible with the legal commitments accepted by the UK" in the Northern Irish Protocol. Mr Gove, a cabinet minister, warned a heavy-handed approach would mean voters deciding against continued alignment with EU rules in the Stormont Vote planned for four years' time. The British Government secured the vote to bring democratic accountability in negotiations with the EU, which ended in a deal to put a customs border in the Irish Sea rather than on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is an EU member. "If the protocol is seen to be working, it's more likely the alignment provisions can be accepted," Mr Gove said, "if it's the case that it were imposed in an over bureaucratic and burdensome manner that would lead inevitably, I think, to a greater degree of disquiet." "When it comes to goods moving from Northern Ireland into the rest of the United Kingdom, the situation will be exactly the same. Come what may," Mr Gove said before admitting there would be additional checks on British goods going to Northern Ireland.
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| Seattle police union expelled from large labor group Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:27 AM PDT  The largest labor group in the Seattle area has expelled the city's police union, saying the guild representing officers failed to address racism within its ranks. The vote Wednesday night by the King County Labor Council to exclude the Seattle Police Officers Guild comes after weeks of protests in the city over police brutality and racism following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It's also significant as the labor council is politically influential.
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| Will new U.S. sanctions hurt Bashar Assad, the Syrian people, or both? Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:23 AM PDT  The U.N. estimates at least 80% of Syrians are already living in poverty, and many fear the new sanctions from Washington will make life even harder.
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| Trump Is Wrecking South Korea's Relationship With North Korea Posted: 18 Jun 2020 08:02 AM PDT  Moon Jae-in has had a hard time persuading the Trump administration to lift sanctions on North Korea because the United States is not interested in letting progress in inter-Korean relations outpace U.S.-North Korea nuclear negotiations.
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| Japan PM to bolster defense after scrapping missile system Posted: 18 Jun 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that his country needs to bolster its security posture amid threats from North Korea and should consider acquiring preemptive strike capability after having to scrap the planned deployment of two new land-based missile defense systems. Abe said he wants to redefine the meaning of deterrence in the face of the threat from North Korea and its advancement in missile technology. "We should renew our discussion of adequate deterrence we need, considering North Korea's missile technology that has advanced since the time we introduced our missile defense systems," he said.
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| India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway win seats on UN Security Council Posted: 18 Jun 2020 07:36 AM PDT  India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway won non-permanent seats on the coveted United Nations Security Council -- the organization's most powerful board -- for the committee's 2021-2022 term. India, the world's largest country without a permanent position on the Security Council, ran unopposed for a seat allocated to its geographic region. Mexico also ran without an opponent.
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| Court says young immigrants can stay, rejecting Trump order Posted: 18 Jun 2020 07:05 AM PDT  The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump's effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants, the second stunning election-season rebuke from the court in a week after its ruling that it's illegal to fire people because they're gay or transgender. Immigrants who are part of the 8-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program will retain their protection from deportation and their authorization to work in the United States — safe almost certainly at least through the November election, immigration experts said. The 5-4 outcome, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices were in the majority, seems certain to elevate the issue in Trump's campaign, given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of his first presidential run in 2016 and immigration restrictions his administration has imposed since then.
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| Kremlin isolates WWII veterans at resort before they meet Putin for Victory Day parade Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:55 AM PDT  The Kremlin has sent Second World War veterans to a resort to keep them in isolation before they meet Vladimir Putin at Russia's Victory Day parade next week. Mr Putin will be hosting the annual Victory Day parade on June 24, after the event marking the victory over Nazi Germany in May 1945 was cancelled due to coronavirus lockdown. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Putin, said on Thursday in reports confirmed by Bloomberg that nearly 80 elderly veterans were brought to a resort outside Moscow. They will stay there for 14 days before the parade so that they do not pass the infection to the president. Mr Putin typically watches the parade from the stands on Red Square, surrounded by the veterans. The presidential spokesman said that the veterans have been asked to stay at a resort due to concerns for their health. "They are at excellent facilities," Mr Peskov said. "First of all, this is about caring about the veterans' health because all of them are going to be there, mingling. It's important to take all the precautions."
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| African states soften call for more scrutiny of racism in US Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:29 AM PDT |
| Egyptian workers return from Libya after incendiary video Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:22 AM PDT  Twenty-three Egyptian workers who were recently detained by militias allied with the Tripoli-based government in western Libya and later released arrived home on Thursday, Egypt's official news agency MENA reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. military renewed its accusations that the Russian government is deploying warplanes to the North African country. The release and repatriation of the Egyptian workers came on the heels of footage circulated on social media purportedly showing militias linked to the U.N.-supported government humiliating scores of Egyptians captured in the western town of Tarhuna.
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| UN urged to hold US 'accountable' over racism, police violence Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:21 AM PDT  The UN on Thursday wrapped up a historic debate about structural racism and police brutality in the United States and beyond -- but rights groups voiced concern that countries might be backing away from committing to concrete action. The urgent debate at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva went into a second day, with numerous countries and organisations outraged over police killings of African Americans like George Floyd.
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| The Latest: Oregon deputies accused of pinning child by neck Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:10 AM PDT  — Lawsuit: Oregon boy, 12, pinned to ground by deputies with knee to his neck. CLACKAMAS, Ore. — The mother of an African American boy filed a $300,000 lawsuit Thursday, saying three sheriff's deputies near Portland pinned him to the ground — one by pressing a knee on his neck — outside a suburban mall after the 12-year-old witnessed a fight and was walking away. The incident happened last August, more than nine months before widespread national outrage over the killing of George Floyd after he was put in a similar hold by Minneapolis police.
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| Lives Lost: For man with Down syndrome, a college dream Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:06 AM PDT  Right up to the end, the status message on Saadya Ehrenpreis' WhatsApp profile read: "Having the time of my life." Born with Down syndrome, Saadya was not expected to be able to become independent, and doctors said he might not even learn to talk. Saadya was beloved on the campus in New York City for his joyful spirit, and classmates paid tribute to him during Yeshiva's graduation via videoconference Sunday — a ceremony in which he himself would have "walked" virtually if not for the new coronavirus.
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| Most German trade fairs to resume from September Posted: 18 Jun 2020 06:04 AM PDT |
| Meet Kim Jong Un's enforcer, his younger sister Posted: 18 Jun 2020 05:42 AM PDT  Kim Jong Un's little sister, who called South Koreans "human scum" last week, is taking a more public and bellicose role in North Korea's leadership.
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| Bolton says Trump unfit for office as book alleges sweeping misdeeds Posted: 18 Jun 2020 05:04 AM PDT  Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton said the U.S. president is unfit for office, according to interview excerpts released on Thursday after portions of the top aide's upcoming book revealed a withering portrayal of his ex-boss. "I don't think he's fit for office," Bolton told ABC News in an interview. The longtime foreign policy hawk, who left the White House in September, accused the president of sweeping misdeeds in order to seek re-election, including explicitly seeking Chinese President Xi Jinping's help, according to portions of his behind-the-scenes account.
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| Jordan's FM warns against annexation on West Bank visit Posted: 18 Jun 2020 05:02 AM PDT  Jordan's foreign minister made an unannounced visit to the West Bank on Thursday during which he warned against any Israeli annexation of occupied territory, saying it would "kill" hopes for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Both Jordan and the Palestinians strongly object to Israel's plans to annex around 30% of the West Bank in line with President Donald Trump's Middle East plan, and are seeking to rally international opposition to such a move.
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